It's the end of the world as you know it – brought to you by a Gnome Mage with big balls of fire

What’s your Mage good at?

I don’t necessarily mean your class defining skill, I mean what one skill that is related to your character do you do the best?

Before you give me the ones that you are worst at as well, leave that for another day… Like tomorrow.

What about Gnomer?

So what’s Gnomeaggedon’s “signature” move, why and how have I made it so?

That’s a hard question you know, and I won’t blame you for balking at providing your own answer. It’s much easier to identify your greatest weakness, rather than your greatest strength.

I’m going to roll with polymorph, even though I “cheat” by having a macro to get me over the line.

The “sheep” button is so ingrained in my mind that it just happens. Like in that HoL run the other night where the tank gave me a 1 second warning that he wanted a sheep (deduct lag and that is zero warning).

Or that add that’s just seen “over my shoulder”.

I see mob, I don’t just think sheep, I AM sheep.

Gnomehopper, I am one with my polymorph button/ keybind.

Tips:

Macro, macro, macro… Make sure it’s a focus macro.

Polymorph is unidirectional. You don’t have to face your target, just point & sheep!

Sheep duration is affected by your +hit. If your +hit is low, your sheep is more likely to run free.

If you barely finish a fight, but the sheep is still there, you can just leave it polymorphed until everyone has the mana and health (or battle rez’d) to continue.

If you know you are going to die make sure the last thing you do is refesh that sheep. Then stay focused and give a 5 second warning before the sheep breaks so your tank can be ready.

If you are in the Arcane Tree you can PoM Poly for emergency instant lamb chops.

If you have a focus sheep macro, remember to clear it in PvP after the opponent is gone. You see the focus bit knows he’s still (again) alive, thus the last target is still focused, but he might be on a completely different part of the map.

You can (and usually should) sheep your mates if they are under a mobs “mind control”. The only thing to remember is if you need that party member back ASAP, you need a dispeller. If you don’t have a dispeller, use a shorter/cancelable CC (note: I am pretty sure your target will remain polymorphed after they return to friendly)

You need to be up close and personal with your AoE tank if you want to CC, otherwise your tank will break it. So be on your toes, and ready to sheep. If need be, Icelance it 1st (then nova it to allow time for sheep casting) to pull it away from the tank.

If you let your tank tap your polymorph target before you sheep it, then the tank will get the aggro when the sheep breaks.

Or, there are a couple of warrior tank skills (probably other tank skills too.. ie: Fairie fire) that allow them to build threat on a polymorphed target without breaking sheep… I just can’t remember what they are right now…)

Before I started playing a mage, I saw a video that blew my socks off, and also made it clear which class I would be playing from that point on.

If I could find the link I would but it’s really ancient history now (just been searching, if anyone can find it pls let me know), the vid may even have been from general beta. Either way, in this video was a mage.

… A dead mage…

he was in the tunnel in AV, surrounded by what looked like the entire opposing team.

He rezzed up, and started blasting. There were arcane explosions, blast waves, frost novas, I think also a blizzard.

And there was the damage, an entire screen full of numbers popping up everywhere…

And there were the HKs! dozens of them! In a matter of seconds the entire opposite team was on the floor, and at this point my passion for mage AoE was born :)

There are a bunch of aoe grind guides around these days, but it really is one of those things you can only master by practice. Lots of practice.

There are plenty of different ways to AoE as a mage, but this sequence is still my favourite. Requires that you have improved blizzard, ice barrier, water elemental and NO frostbite.

1. barrier up.
2. mount up.
3. gather 8 – 20 melee mobs.
4. iceblock.
5. wait for all the mobs to gather around you in a neat circle. (don’t too long or the mobs will get bored and wander off)
6. pop your iceblock, drop a frost nova, and blink the hell out of there.
7. blink + a few steps should put you at max blizzard range. (pop trinkets)
8. get your pet out.
9. cast a blizzard so it is covering the mobs
10. use pet’s freeze when they break
11. time for another blizzard on top of the pack
12. third blizzard, this one closer to you so the mobs will walk through it when they get out of the freeze.
13. frost nova + cone of cold when the pack gets close to you again…

… spend 5 minutes looting corpses

I still plan to make a video one of these days if I can just get around to installing fraps one day!